After Focus creates your own blurry background photos, without a HTC One (M8)

With the launch of the new HTC One (M8) and its Duo Camera, we'll be seeing a lot more photos taken with a shallow depth of field and a gloriously blurred out background. It's common to see on photos taken with proper cameras, but less so on smartphones. But it looks awesome when it comes out well.

Some use software or trickery to create the effect artificially. Nokia Refocus for example takes a selection of shots at different focal lengths to allow you to change the focus on the picture after you've taken it. There's also a pretty popular app here on Android, After Focus, that lets you get your blur on.

It works very simply. You can either shoot a photo from within the app – still using the phone's stock camera app it seems – or choose one from your gallery. On the LG G2 I lost a lot of the cool scene modes like HDR shooting using the app, so I'd always recommend taking the pictures first if you're being ultra creative.

There are then two methods to helping you blur out the background while keeping your focal point nice and sharp. There's smart mode, and a manual mode. Smart asks you to define areas of focus and background and it'll figure it out. Manual lets you 'color in' all the areas you want to keep in sharp and mid focus.

It's actually pretty good at what it does, and it does blur out the backgrounds nicely. But, it's only as accurate as you are. And with my fat fingers that sometimes leaves distinct edges where I don't want them to be. It might be better with a capacitive stylus if you have one, but I'd recommend manual mode over Smart every time.

It's free to try out – you do get ads – so give it a whirl. If you're liking some of what you're seeing with the HTC One (M8) camera, try this out to artificially create something similar of your very own. If you've got any similar apps you recommend, drop them into the comments below!

Reader comments

After Focus creates your own blurry background photos, without a HTC One (M8)

Well it's been around for a while, and you have to be super-accurate to make something look great. But what really makes AfterFocus great it's the built-in filters. Seriously, there's like 4 or 5 of them I use more than Instagram ones before posting.

That was the point I was trying to make above, but then I got "schooled" on photography.

It's still a phone. And I still maintain it's a gimmick feature on a phone. Higher pixel count and OIS would have been a much more reasonable advancement for a phone, IMO. Blurred background is the purpose? Ok.

HTC actually listened to us bitch&moan about the (M7) not having expandable memory but DID NOT listen to us about needing more pixels. They also ignored us as we ignored the HTC EVO 3D ... sad really. heheheh smh

You weren't schooled on photography, you just had some words thrown at you from people who don't know what they're talking about. There may be cases where this app could prove useful, but a gimmick it is.

The "background blur all the things!" gimmick will get old. HTC would have been better served to put an 8-12pixel ultrapixel sensor with OIS in the M8. But alas, blur all the things I guess. Then instagram them retro-style. Yeah, that's the ticket! Sigh.

But this is nothing like a proper pro shot - it's just a gaussian blur. It simulates a focal point but with no focal plane. It could work for portraits, but for shots like the sample with the two lego people, you get unnatural results.

Yup. Oldie but a goodie. Doesn't hurt to highlight these things once in a while though for folks a little newer to Android than some of us, especially when it can mimic a feature on the hot new device of the moment :)

The zoom feature as well as the different brush sizes do help when trying to cover an area using your finger. A stylus does help if you have it. I have been using this for a couple years now. I liked the free version so much that I wound up buying the paid version. Gotta help these developers out every once in a while. Do an app right and I'll most likely look to pay for it or "donate" to remove ads.